


give my heart a holiday

by manchestereye (orphan_account)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Apartment Building AU, M/M, idk how to tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 04:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20147398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/manchestereye
Summary: there's a nuisance of a neighbor right above phil, and he doesn't really know what to do about it.





	give my heart a holiday

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icosmics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icosmics/gifts).

> title from strawberries and cigarettes (tbh i was just listening to it and that was the only thing i could think of for a title)
> 
> icosmics hi uwu

when phil lester moved into his apartment on a sunny afternoon, he thought it was going to be nice and peaceful. and it was, until he met dan howell.

dan howell moved into the building a few months after phil did, and right on top of phil’s apartment.

the weekend after dan moved in, phil had a day off from his job as a receptionist, because it’s a saturday. which meant that phil got to sleep in for as long as he wanted and not have to worry about anything else. he’ll probably watch some anime once he finally wakes up.

wrong.

there’s an alarm clock going off at 7:30 in the morning. phil’s very confused, because he knows that it’s not his alarm going off. it goes on for a few more minutes before it finally stops and he could go back to sleep.

but phil can’t really fall asleep again, so he just decides to make the most out of this morning and get up, even if he’s not really going to do anything. he hopes that he could sleep in the next morning.

he doesn’t.

he gets woken up by that stupid alarm once again, at the same exact time. phil figures out that it’s coming from the apartment directly above him. 

_ “if this continues every time i’m home, i’m going to yell at whoever lives there.”  _ phil grumbles.

the alarm goes on for a little bit longer today, but when it stops phil finally goes back to sleep only to be woken up two hours later.

someone is banging on his door rapidly. 

“dan howell! i know you’re awake, open the fucking door!” a man yells.

phil rubs his eyes as he walks to the door. 

“open this door right now or else i’m going to-oh, you’re not dan.” the guy says when he notices phil opening the door.

“yeah, i’m not dan. you’ve got the wrong apartment.” phil glares.

“this is 424?” the guy asks, with a confused look on his face.

“nope. 324. who are you anyways?” phil points at the number plaque to the left of the door.

“pj. a friend of dan, who lives upstairs. sorry to bother you!”

pj leaves before phil could say anything else. 

if anything good came out of this, phil was able to get the name of the person who set off these annoying alarms.

he’ll give dan the benefit of the doubt and see if the alarms stop next weekend before asking to lower the alarm’s volume.

-

phil manages to make it through the work week without having to deal with anymore disruptions from the neighbor upstairs. he works from 6 to 3 on weekdays, which means he’s already up and running before blasted 7 am alarms. but the stupid alarm wakes him up on saturday. 

this time, it’s at 8 am. 

phil groans.

he turns over and just goes back to sleep again. 

the cycle repeats for weeks. every saturday and sunday, phil will wake up at 7 or 8 in the morning against his will because of his neighbor. 

he wonders how the rest of the people in the complex feel about it. he feels sorry for his other neighbors if they have to deal with that on weekdays too. 

phil doesn’t really wanna find out if the alarms go off on weekdays too.

he doesn’t really do anything about talking to the neighbor upstairs, because social anxiety is a bitch and he can tolerate waking up early. it makes him more productive for some reason, but he wouldn’t admit that. phil misses sleeping in on the weekends just like his last apartment.

he hears a bloodcurdling scream sometime that afternoon from upstairs. phil decides to check on dan, wondering what the hell is happening up there. 

phil accidentally breaks the lock in the process, and he finds himself face to face with the infamous dan howell. 

dan is standing on a chair in his underwear, holding a pillow.

“what the hell is happening here?” phil asks.

dan looks at him with an apologetic look. “there’s a spider crawling around.”

“do you want me to take it out for you?”

he nods.

phil looks around until he finds the spider. he opens the window and puts it on the balcony lining.

dan sighs. “thank you for helping me out. sorry for the scream.”

“ah, it’s fine. i hope you have a good day.”

“you too.”

phil is right in front of his apartment before he realizes that he forgot to ask dan about those noisy alarms.

he’ll have another chance... probably.

-

phil gets laid off from his job about two weeks later. he’s not surprised, there’s been talk of the company shutting down lately, and luckily he has enough saved in his bank account to help him out for the month.

since he doesn’t have a job anymore, he doesn’t have to wake up at 5 in the morning on weekdays for the meantime. unfortunately, this means that phil has to subject himself to that horrible alarm. 

he completely forgot about it, and didn’t think that it was a thing on weekdays.

_ “of course it’s a thing on weekdays, you bloody idiot. what kind of psycho wakes up early on weekends but not weekdays?”  _ phil curses to himself.

phil doesn’t wanna think about it, so he just wakes up and gets himself ready for the day. he supposes he could get started on job hunting early. that’s when he feels a little drop on his head.

“what the hell?” phil asks, to no one in particular.

he thinks he’s imagining things. the lack of sleep is probably getting to him. but the drip happens once again. 

once every two minutes, a drop will fall down. phil looks up to see a wet spot onto the ceiling.

“jesus christ, i have other things to do.”

phil decides to march up to dan’s apartment, because he’s tired of dan’s stupid alarm clock and he doesn’t want his apartment to be flooded. 

perfect timing that dan isn’t home.

phil sighs. he’ll deal with the stupid drops later.

-

phil finally finds a job at a call center for a clinic. his hours have changed, which means that he’ll be working late nights from 7 pm to 1 am. not the best schedule, but phil will take what he can get.

surprisingly he didn’t get woken up by that stupid alarm that morning. 

but the alarm is switched for something else that day. when phil finally gets home that night, there’s loud music playing from up above. 

he’s not gonna lie, it’s good music. muse and my chemical romance. it’s just not good if he wants to go to sleep. and phil really wants to go to sleep right now. 

he doesn’t have the energy to go up to dan’s apartment and chew him out, so he just suffers in silence hoping that it will tone down.

it does, at four in the morning.

phil gets woken up by that alarm too three hours later.

-

a month passes, and the drip has moved from the bathroom to the kitchen. phil’s just having a lovely afternoon, making sandwiches for him and his friend louise, when suddenly-  _ drip! _

dan’s really bad at apartment maintenance, phil notices.

he quickly forgets about it though when louise starts a conversation about her new boyfriend.

-

phil hears a cat meowing while he’s doing his taxes one night. there’s definitely rules about having cats in the building, phil knows that for sure. he would’ve already gotten a dog if there weren’t any rules.

the cat meows every five minutes. phil is about to go insane.

as much as he wants to rat on dan and his cat, phil thinks that maybe the cat is just a visitor and that it’ll go away soon.

it doesn’t. two months go by and the cat is still meowing about. sometimes it will keep phil up at night.

when his mum visits the apartment, she can clearly see the eyebags in her son’s face.

“what happened to you, child?” 

“the neighbor upstairs. it’s like he’s intentionally trying to keep me awake with his illegal cat, that stupid alarm clock and that one time where he was playing loud music in the middle of the night!” phil complains.

phil’s mum just gives him a very tight hug. “why don’t you go talk to him?”

“i don’t want to.” he pouts.

“phil, you have to do something about it if it’s annoying you this much.”

phil shrugs. 

“i suppose that’s a good idea.”

“of course it is. mother knows best.”

-

phil is stood in front of dan’s apartment the next afternoon. he holds his hand up to knock, but he’s hesitant. what’s the harm in asking your neighbor to tone it down a little bit and be more conscious about his noise?

there isn’t really, because it’s a diplomatic way of dealing with a situation without immediately going up to the scary landlord that owns this building. phil almost didn’t move in because the landlord intimidated him so much, but he pushed through with it because he was tired of living in an apartment the size of a small walk in closet. he also definitely did not want to move back in with his mother, because that’s too much of a commute to his work.

phil tells himself that it’s going to be fine, so he knocks on the door.

dan is actually home this time, as he’s the one that opens it.

“hi, what’s up?” dan asks. 

“please do something about your cat. it’s keeping me awake at night, and your alarm is way too loud.” phil blurts, speaking at a mile a minute.

“oh, sorry about that. i didn’t know it bothered anyone. no one’s said anything before. thanks for telling me.” dan says.

“do you wanna talk about it inside?”

phil nods, and dan steps off to the side to let him in.

phil talks about the dumb cat, the alarm, the loud music from a while ago, and especially the faucet dripping so much that it seeped into phil’s ceilings.

dan apologizes for everything. he says that he never really noticed the faucet dripping, or the alarm clock. the music was a one time thing for when his friends slept over, but the cat was an impulse adoption.

phil laughs at that.

they talk for hours, not just about the apartment. when phil notices dan’s attack on titan jumper, they get into a discussion about the best animes. 

phil finds out that dan is actually kind of, no, definitely cute.

“hey, i have to head to work now, but i don’t have a shift on sunday so, would you maybe wanna get dinner together?” phil asks.

_ “yeah, sure, no problem!” _

phil sleeps well for the first time in ages, and the alarm clock  _ doesn’t  _ wake him up the next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading
> 
> tumblr: fearoftryinq


End file.
